Everyone knows Jared Fogle’s story. For the past 15 years, he has starred in television commercials touting the diet of eating only Subway sandwiches that helped him lose more than 200 pounds.

But is just eating meals of sandwiches, baked chips and a diet soda the best way to lose weight, even if the results were great for Jared? Not so much, according to an Arkansas River Valley dietitian.

Fogle, 35, said he never expected this to ever happen when he got tired of being a social dropout and looked for a way to drop his weight.

“I never expected any of this,” Fogle said. “I was a business major in college. I thought maybe I’d work for an ad agency or a PR firm.”

Back in the late 1990s, while attending Indiana University, Fogle avoided everyone because he tipped the scales at 425 pounds.

Eventually, Fogle came up with the idea to eat Subway entirely — a 6-inch turkey sub for lunch and a full-length veggie sub for dinner, both meals with a bag of baked chips and a diet soda. He would go on to lose more then 200 pounds, and wound up a celebrity and spokesman for Subway.

However, a local eating and dieting expert, clinical dietitian Ramona Hodges at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, said this isn’t a good plan for people to use when they’re trying to lose weight.

Hodges recommended eating balanced meals that provide all the daily needed nutrients, vitamins and minerals needed to be healthy.

“Jared’s original diet consisted of 980 calories, which could make one miss out on key nutrients such as calcium, iron and protein,” she said. “The repeated consumption of only certain foods could lead to vitamin and mineral deficiency.”

Hodges said the low amount of calories might help a person lose weight, but it could have negative effects on how they function throughout the day.

“In addition with such a low-calorie level, it also will decrease one’s metabolism. Also, Jared skipped breakfast every day, which helps one concentrate in school and kick-start our metabolism for the day,” she said. “Skipping breakfast can actually make us hungrier later in the day and lead to overeating. I, too, have been there and did in college!”

Hodges said Fogle was on to something when he started eating fast food for his diet because there are many, many real-world choices that can be incorporated into any diet.

“Any food can be worked into a healthy meal plan, and it did make the public more aware of healthy food choices available in the world of fast food,” she said.

Despite eating the same thing every day, Fogle said he never got sick of eating Subway, but admits he craved pizza and cheeseburgers.

“In the early days, I had to literally hold onto the side of my chair, because if I had gotten up I would have gotten in my car and driven to the drive-thru,” he said.

Fogle is marking his 15th anniversary of hitting upon his recipe for shedding weight — eating the chain’s subs minus the cheese and mayo. He has been starring in commercials most of that time.

And he has been good for Subway’s business, too.

Since Fogle first appeared in a national TV commercial, Subway’s sales more than tripled to $11.4 billion in 2011, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. QSR magazine called him “Subway’s savior.” Subway now exceeds McDonald’s in the number of locations in the U.S. and globally.